23. HRP-2 HELICOPTER

The HRP-1 helicopter was reasonably successful, the primary objections were the tandem crew seating and the fabric fuselage covering.  The HRP-2 machine was the same dynamic components with an all metal fuselage and side  by side  seating. Only five were built but a structural demonstration at Patuxent River Navy Base was required before it could enter service.

Seth King was in charge of the instrumentation and I had the rest of the aircraft.  Jim Ryan was our pilot.  We were there about 6 weeks, but we came  home  most weekends.  Seth and I swapped rides home.  We lived in the Bachelor Officers Quarters.

Jim Ryan had a tendency to find his way into trouble. On the way down to Patuxent River he flew over the Aberdeen  Proving Grounds and got a citation.  Then he went home for the weekend, fell asleep smoking in bed and his bedroom burned. He enjoyed his nights at Patuxent and would sleep on the sea wall between flights using his helmet for a pillow.

Jim’s next assignment to Patuxent he bailed out of an HUP aircraft and a week later he married one of the secretaries for another company.  He said he jumped into the water twice in one week, once into the Patuxent River and once into the Sea Of  Matrimony.

Our program went well, our last test was structural landing loads. We had quite an elaborate instrumentation set up with flash bulbs at touch down and cameras, etc.  The program was to build up landing loads to the design max.

On the first landing Jim hit really hard so the program was stopped to analyze the data and inspect the aircraft. Some parts of the heat shroud on the engine came off but every thing else was ok. We had exceeded the design Max loads on the first landing.  Program over.

While we were there one of our HUP aircraft was there and was in Navy hands, we had nothing to do with it.  The Navy folks moved the aircraft outside to do a ground  run, it was parked directly in front of us. When they engaged the rotor there was a collision between rotors and plywood flew every were. 

I was standing along side our aircraft and took cover inside. This happened because, when they had the aft vertical shaft out, some one moved the forward rotor and changed the phase relationship.  It should have been checked before they ran it.  Oh well !!

Charles Kessler is a retired flight test engineer for Boeing’s Vertol helicopter division (formerly Piasecki Helicopter Co.). He joined Piesecki in 1947, in the company’s fourth year, and retired from Boeing in 1983. During his 37-year career he took part in the testing of prototypes and alterations of such models as the CH-47 Chinook and Sea Knight, the H-16, HRP-2, and the V-107. He taught the stability augmentation system to the German Luftwaffe. He has written about his experience in a blog called “Early Helicopter Years,” which can be found at http://helicopterstory.blogspot.com/.